Category: Bible Reading & Meditation

TRADITIONAL?

“This people pays Me lip service but their heart is far from Me. Empty is the reverence they do Me because they teach as dogmas mere human precepts.” –Mark 7:6-7; Isaiah 29:13 Mass Readings: February 6 First: 1 Kings 8:22-23,27-30; Resp: Psalm 84:3-5,10-11; Gospel: Mark 7:1-13 Listen to the Mass Readings There are divine traditions – the magisterial teachings of the Church and the Bible. These divine traditions are the truth (see 2 Thes 2:15). They cannot be changed. We must conform our lives to these divine traditions. On Judgment Day, we will be judged according to these divine traditions....

“YOU ARE MY HIDING PLACE”

“The Lord intends to dwell in the dark cloud.” –1 Kings 8:12 Mass Readings: February 5 First: 1 Kings 8:1-7,9-13; Resp: Psalm 132:6-10; Gospel: Mark 6:53-56 Listen to the Mass Readings In today’s first Eucharistic reading and psalm response, God makes the Temple His home on earth. Yet in the process of dwelling among us, God hides in the dark cloud which fills the Temple (1 Kgs 8:10ff). In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus, God incarnate, leaves that Temple and goes out to Gentile territory. Yet shortly thereafter Jesus hides Himself and “wanted no one to recognize Him” (Mk 7:24). The...

I KNOW MY REDEEMER LIVES (SEE JB 19:25)

“I shall not see happiness again.” –Job 7:7 How many of you can identify with Job in his hopeless misery? (Jb 7:3) Your situation is so bad that you can say: “I loathe my life. I will give myself up to complaint; I will speak from the bitterness of my soul” (Jb 10:1). “I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights…I am filled with restlessness until the dawn…My days…come to an end without hope…I shall not see happiness again” (Jb 7:3, 4, 6, 7). God’s plan is not to spare us from difficult times; His plan is to...

CARDIAC CARE

“Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart.” –1 Kings 3:9 Solomon asked for and received “a heart so wise and understanding that there [had] never been anyone like” him (1 Kgs 3:12). However, “when Solomon was old his wives had turned his heart to strange gods, and his heart was not entirely with the Lord, his God, as the heart of his father David had been” (1 Kgs 11:4). Solomon, the owner of what was the best heart in the world, suffered heart failure because of his sinfulness, especially idolatry. On this first Saturday of the month, we think of...

PRESENT-ABLE?

Mary and Joseph “came to offer in sacrifice ‘a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.’ ” –Luke 2:24 In presenting their children to the Lord, Jewish parents made a small sacrifice in place of sacrificing their children. However, in Jesus’ Presentation, a small sacrifice did not replace a great sacrifice; rather, it prefigured Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice on Calvary. Therefore, Jesus’ Presentation is not a calling to less sacrifice but to sharing in Jesus’ perfect sacrifice. Today, we are called to be like Mary and open our hearts to be pierced with a sword of suffering (Lk 2:35). We are...